The bag issue is more complicated than we make it out to be, and, in the end, your decisions may be affected heavily by what you care about more. I’ll deal with that at the end.

Let me, like Martin Luther, nail a list of theses to your door.

1. Under no circumstances take this opportunity to buy a new cotton tote bag. Cloth bags use up a lot of resources (land, fertilizer and, especially, water) as they come into existence. If you’re going to run out and get a fancy cotton tote bag, you might as well use it to beat a Sumatran ground cuckoo to death.

2. Let’s back up. You should start by going through your house and collecting all the tote bags you already have. You might be surprised. Business and organizations love tote bags because they’re cheap, flat and easy to put a logo on. (Author puts hands in pocket. Whistles. Waits for reader to remember that author works in public radio.) You may already have as many bags as you need. Move them all out to your car. They’re not doing you any good in that closet.

3. A paper bag is not much of an improvement. Yes, it will biodegrade and not wind up in whale’s stomach, but paper-making has a big carbon footprint and creates waste.

4. A “single use” plastic bag which you, contrary to its name, reuse a few times, is a karmic improvement. I buy a lot of stuff at farmer’s markets and, when possible, I just dump them into one of my big bags. Then, when I put the lettuce or broccoli in the fridge, I wrap them in a plastic bag (that I used to get) from CVS or the grocery store. Then, when I actually use the vegetable, I try to turn the bag into a garbage bag. It’s still a petroleum product and the kind of thing that winds up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but it lived a fuller life.

5. The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men. (That’s actually one of Luther’s theses. I just threw it in there to see if you’re still paying attention.)

6. The best choice may be a sturdy, capacious plastic tote bag, ideally made of recycled materials or nylon or polypropylene. And then you use it until it actually wears out. A battered, cracked and weathered plastic-based tote bag is a badge of honor, even if there’s still no guarantee it won’t choke a turtle somewhere down the line.

7. I also bring to the supermarket or farmer’s market a very old insulated bag into which I toss a couple of freezer-packs.

8.Jute. I’m not sure about jute, although I have a very nice jute market bag. I think jute is probably a good choice, until somebody explodes that theory. One thing you could do: spend $68 on a customizable jute market bag, and I guarantee you, you’re going to make a point of using that thing until you or it dies.

9. Hemp. College kids love hemp, because it’s a cannabis product and because they like telling us how we can make brake linings and sneakers and robots out of hemp. It’s certainly a more efficient crop than cotton, and Connecticut is starting to grow it. My advice: wait until Christmas. Some family member attending UMass will give you a hemp tote bag.